We are now less than 24 hours away from the Oculus Connect Event, and rumors and excitement are picking up more than ever. Software designers from Oculus have recently taken to Twitter to express some excitement for the “big reveal” and the “game changing thing we have been working on” that they will be releasing tomorrow.
Jonathon Ravasz is the Product Design Prototyper for Facebook. He was the first to tweet about the session he will be hosting tomorrow. If you visit the official Oculus Blog, you see that this session is yet to be named. In fact, the name it holds right now is “To Be Announced”. It is also important to note that in the tweet he says that Etienne Pinchon, Adam Varga, and Eugene Krivoruchko will be joining him to speak on “something special we have been cooking up”. You can expect this session to take place just after the opening keynote takes place.
It is important to notice that each of these designers that have been mention are all located in the London Oculus offices. There has yet to be any leaks or knowledge about this project before yesterday, so whatever they have been working on is top secret. Pinchon also says that he is “So stoked for you to have your first sneak peak at this insanely cool and game changing thing we have been working on for you guys!” In his tweet in reposted to Ravasz first tweet.
Each of the designers also have been working on the software inside of VR, not the hardware. Hardware is usually what excites customers and entices them to buy the product, but the software is what keeps the customers around for the long haul. If your software is non-specific to what the customers need, then the customers will end up modding the software how they see fit, or trusting another company with their software needs.
Krivoruchko has previously worked on hand tracking software inside of AR for Leap Motion. That could give us a hint at what could be in store for this weekend. Pinchon has worked on a WebVR creation platform named Hologram. This was a social app. Ravasz has worked more closely to Oculus as he was on the teams that created the Oculus Rooms and Oculus Venues. Varga’s Twitter bio expresses interest in XR and interfaces.
If we are wanting to pull together all of the clues and make a grand assumption of what we will be seeing tomorrow, there is a lot to go off of. Our first guess would be hand tracking for gaming, new social interactions, and a fun new social app. If we took more than ten seconds to think about it though, Oculus may be making the power move of the decade in VR.
An Oculus x Facebook collaboration for a social app inside of virtual reality that includes hand tracking, mouth tracking, and even is able to interact with people not inside of virtual reality. That is something that would propel them further than the competition sees them for this calendar year. If you check the Facebook Oculus job listings, there are opening for a software engineer. If you dig a little further, the job description is “As a software engineer for AR/VR at Facebook London, you’ll be working at the forefront of building the future of interaction in VR with the team that built Oculus Rooms and Oculus Venues. We’re looking for talented engineers passionate about product and working on cutting edge technologies.”
As you can see, all signs are pointing to Oculus making their own social app somewhat like VRchat and others. For more VR news and updates, and updates on the Oculus Connect 6 event, check back at VRGear.com.
